Conversations with the Dead
by Trini08
Summary: Tony talks to Kate at her graveside. TATE. Ch 3 up. yes i updated. SPOILERS for Bait.
1. I Loved You

Tony stood beside Kate's grave. He had seen images of her in his mind since she died. Most of them were of her in a Catholic school girl uniform, and sometimes, even naked. But that was _not_ how he wanted to remember her. He knew he had to come to grips with his real feelings eventually, but it hurt so much. It hurt so much he could barely breathe. He stood there at her graveside for a long time until he finally spoke to her.

"I know I treated you terrible while you were alive Kate. I teased you, bugged you, even blackmailed you. But I always loved you." He stopped because he was fighting back tears, the same tears that had welled up in him when he finaly realized she was dead or when he sat at her funeral only a few days before.

"That's why I did all that stuff to you, to get your attention, to get you to notice me. I loved you. I loved you more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life, and you left me. You left me here alone." Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks, but he didn't care. He didn't care who saw him cry at this moment. He needed to tell Kate how he felt.

"You left me here alone. Alone to catch your killer. Alone to see your empty desk everyday. Alone with no one to help me torture Probie. Alone with no one to run cases with!" He was yelling by now. "And worst of all, you left me alone with no one to love!"

He collapsed in a fit of tears onto her grave. He knelt there and cried for sometime. Finally he stopped crying, placed a kiss on her headstone and stood up, sniffling.

"I loved you Kate." He said. "I loved you so much and I will never stop loving you."

He put the flowers he had brought her down in front of the headstone, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a necklace.

"I was going to give you this on my first day back" He looked down at the charm on the gold chain. "A brush with death can change a man. I was going to tell you how much I loved you. I never had the chance to, _you_ died before I had the chance." He kissed the charm and placed the necklace on the ground over the flowers. It was a gold heart outline with the words 'I love you' written in gold inside the heart.

He stood again in silence, thinking about her. He looked over at a tree nearby and he could see her, like he had for days after she died. Only this time she was different. She was dressed as she usually did when she came to work. The beauty that he had fallen in love with in the first place.

* * *

_I hope you liked this, i'll write somemore chapters later. please r&r._


	2. Why keep asking?

_I changed chapter 2 in this story, cuz i decided that i want to write a chapter at the end of every episode and the other one didnt fit. Hope you like it._

* * *

Tony's visions of Kate had stopped. He didn't see her anywhere, not at work, not at crime scenes and not when he visited her grave. He still visited her grave whenever he could find time; he didn't want to loose his connection to her. He didn't want to think about the fact that she was gone. As he walked up to her grave that day, he thought about everything that had happened during their latest case.

"Hey Katie." He said, as he usually did, sitting on the ground beside the headstone. "It's been a rough couple of weeks. Everyone keeps asking me how I am, if I'm ok and all that stuff. I never know how to reply." He sighed.

"Half the time I think I'm fine until I walk past your empty desk, then I feel like crying, but I don't, cause that's not what macho guys like me do." He said, trying to laugh off his feelings. "Gibbs still won't let anyone sit at your desk, not even Cassidy. She helped us out on our latest case."

He closed his eyes at the memory of what had happened at one of the crime scenes. What he'd said had been second nature; it was going to take a while to get over that.

"The case wasn't bothering me too much, until….. until we needed to find something and I almost told McGee to go find you and ask you where it was. I'm not used to not having you here Kate, I miss you, I miss joking around with you at crime scenes, bugging you about everything." He took a deep breath to contain his emotions. He didn't want to loose it.

He smiled, knowing what to tell her next. "Yeah, so I told you that Cassidy worked with us on the case right? Man, is she hot. But ya know what Katie? She's nothing compared to you. I flirted with her all those times to get to you, to get you to have some kind of reaction." His smile faded as he thought about what had happened to Cassidy. "I was so scared though, when she got abducted by that freak we were after. It felt like I was loosing you all over again. I don't think I would have been able to handle that. But, we found her, she's ok. I wish you could have been ok, Kate, I really do."

He stopped talking and stared off into the distance for a while. He wanted to see her again, not as she was when he saw the visions of her after she died. He wanted to see her as she was when she was alive. He couldn't see her though, she wasn't there, and she never would be again.

"So, yeah, I don't know why everyone keeps asking me how I am. I think it's pretty obvious. I'm heartbroken, lonely and scared. But like I'll ever admit that to anyone else, but you." He stood up and placed a hand on her headstone. "Bye Katie."

* * *

_Please r&r, i'll post a new chapter after evey NCIS ep._


	3. I'm sorry

**Thought I'd update this one after tonites episode. If you havent seen it yet, dont read this chapter, SPOILERS!**

* * *

Tony walked up to Kate's grave. It had been months since he'd been here. He was so busy with work, he never had time anymore. And if that hadn't made him feel guilty enough what he had done only a few days ago definitely had.

"Hey Kate." He said softly, kneeling beside the head stone. "Sorry I haven't been around for a while. Been busy, ya know, with work and all."

He ran his fingers over where her name was carved into the stone and smiled sadly. He needed to be here, needed her to know and need to apologize.

"I'm so sorry Kate." Tony was starting to tear up. "I'm sorry. Um, two days ago, the team was called in for a hostage crisis in a high school. I mean, it was great; I got to take control of the situation. Well, ok, the only reason I was in charge was because Gibbs had gone into the classroom and become a hostage himself, but that's beside the point. This poor kid, he was being used as a puppet to get to his mother. Only thing is, everyone thought that she was dead."

He sighed and fought back the tears welling up behind his eyes.

"We didn't find out about that until Gibbs had already gone into the room, so I had to find someway of telling him with out tipping off the kid. So……so I said that you were working on finding her. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I used your name as a cue. I shouldn't have, I should have found some other way to tell him, it wasn't right. Your death was something very serious; I should never have lightened the severity of it by doing that. I'm sorry Kate, I really am. I'm so sorry."

Tony continued to fight back the tears that threatened to fall. That decision had torn open the wound of her death all over again and he couldn't deal with it again. He knelt there for a while, letting a few tears fall, letting his body shake with the sobs.

"I'm sorry." He whispered again. He jumped when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun around to see who it was. "Gibbs?"

"I think she'd be ok with it, DiNozzo. If it saved someone's life I think she'd be happy."

"Wha….what are you doing here?"

"What, did you think you were the only person that ever came to visit her? I come here a lot. Conversations with the dead. If it helps Ducky, why not everyone else too?"

"You've lost people you were close to right?" Gibbs nodded. "Does the pain ever go away?"

"Not really, but you learn to live with it." Gibbs answered. He started to walk away but turned after a few steps. "You ever make me call you 'boss' again, DiNozzo, and I swear I'll kill you." With that he turned and left, leaving Tony to mourn the loss everyone was feeling all over again since that hostage situation.

* * *

**Hope you liked it. And damn, that was one good episode tonight wasnt it? Yay for Tony growing up. lol, please R&R, thanx.**


End file.
